Evernorth said patients will be able to get the drugs with the $200 copay through a "broad network of local retail pharmacies" or through its own EnGuide Pharmacy.

What it means: Researchers are predicting that the widespread use of the drugs could eventually protect patients from all kinds of conditions that are affected by obesity or blood sugar levels, including heart disease, cancer and even dementia.

But David Joyner, the CEO of CVS Health, told a House committee last July that semaglutide and related drugs would cost the United States $1.2 trillion per year at current prices if every adult dealing with obesity took the drugs.

Competition that drives down the cost of Wegovy and Zepbound could help employers' health plans offer the drugs to more plan participants and improve the participants' health without causing prescription drug spending to blow up.

The drugs: Physicians were once skeptical about the idea that any safe drugs could help people control their weight, but researchers have found in recent years that versions of drugs that have been used to help with diabetes control their blood sugar levels can also reduce people's level of hunger and help them lose weight.

Novo Nordisk's Wegovy contains semaglutide, a drug that connects with the GLP-1 receptors in people's cells, lowers blood sugar levels and makes people less hungry.

Eli Lilly's Zepbound contains tirzepatide, a drug that controls blood sugar and hunger levels by affecting two different types of receptors: GLP-1 receptors and GIP receptors.

The prices: In recent years, when federal regulators said the country was facing a Wegovy shortage, compounding pharmacies were selling generic versions of semaglutide for less than $200 per month.

Eli Lilly began to add price competition for brand-name new-generation weight-loss drugs last March, by offering Zepbound to cash-pay customers for $399 per month.

Now, regulators say, the semaglutide and tirzepatide shortages are officially over. Regulators are blocking sales of compounded semaglutide and compounded tirzepatide.

Hims & Hers Health, a big online health services firm, announced in April, as its ability to sell compounded semaglutide ended, that it would offer Wegovy to new, cash-pay customers for $599 per month.

Hims & Hers responded to the Evernorth announcement by offering Wegovy for new, cash-pay customers for $549 per month for the first six months.

The Novo Nordisk board last week said it was replacing the CEO because of a decrease in the company's stock price.

Related: Health care giant, Novo Nordisk, pushes its CEO out

The Novo Nordisk CEO change and the Evernorth copay cap move may be a sign that competition is starting to bring Wegovy and Zepbound prices back to earth.

The future impact: One question is when the prices of semaglutide, tirzepatide and future new-generation anti-obesity drugs will fall low enough for employers to begin to think of the drugs as if they were statins, to be offered as widely as possible, rather than as specialty drugs to be hoarded.

Researchers recently predicted in a paper published by JAMA Health Forum that semaglutide, the active ingredient inside Wegovy, will offer patients an average of one extra "quality-adjusted life year" for less than $100,000 once the price of semaglutide falls below $1,522 per year.

When the researchers wrote the paper, patients and plans were paying an average of $8,412 per year for semaglutide, after taking health plan discounts into account.

Tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, seems to be better at improving patients' health.

Tirzepatide may help a patient add a QALY for less than $100,000 once its price falls below $4,334 per year, from the 2024 average of $6,236, according to the researchers' data.